Pete Thamel’s heart’s gone all pitter-patter over Northwestern AD Peter Roby, in part for Roby saying stuff like this:

And he took Louisville officials to task for hiring Petrino earlier this month. At Petrino’s previous job at Arkansas, he got fired after having an affair, hiring his mistress and then lying to his bosses about the whole sordid mess. (In the most precious moment of that debacle, Petrino showed up at a press conference in a neck brace.)

In his comments, Roby didn’t address Petrino and Louisville specifically when mentioning ethics among power schools. But everyone knew what he was talking about. To Roby’s credit, he didn’t hesitate to expound on the Petrino hire afterward when asked by SI.com.

“We keep telling (coaches that) they have to be men of integrity and character,” Roby said. “Yet (Petrino) gets another opportunity and is going to make $3.5 million. It’s like he didn’t pay any price for all the embarrassments he caused to the institutions where he was at, to his family, to the NCAA and to the member schools. We all get painted with that brush.”

… He added about the Petrino hire: “What does that have to do with education? What does that have to do with leadership? We’re supposed to be leaders of young men. What messages does it send to the rest of the people on the campus?”

Before you snicker at this (Roby’s upset that Petrino didn’t pay a price with his family? How does he know and what business is it of his anyway?), consider the NCAA’s most famous foray into integrity and character, the Penn State sanctions. Now what Jerry Sandusky did was monstrous and in no way compares with putting a mistress on the company payroll, the fact is that we’re still looking at a difference from the NCAA’s standpoint that’s a matter of degree than of kind. There were no rules that Mark Emmert was following or enforcing, unless you want to accept the language stretching he did as a fig leaf to justify the need… no, make that the desire, to be seen as weighing in with the strongest disapproval of Sandusky’s behavior and the institution that employed him for many years. Roby doesn’t have anything to point to either. He just wants to send a message.

I doubt the NCAA has the stomach to take up his suggestion – how many schools have hired coaches with ethical baggage? But that sure doesn’t mean Roby’s paving anything new with his good intentions.

The guy thinks it is tacky to keep hiring these guys and said as much in front of all the people who make those hiring decisions. I appreciate the honesty and the balls to say what most are thinking. I didnt see anything where he was suggesting that Louisville be punished or that the NCAA should make rules about what coaches can do off the field. Simply that he didn’t liked getting lumped in with the people who do that type of hiring.

Wasn’t it Big Mike that had the party for his son at University expense. And did Mike have something to do with our current pot laws for athletes? I often read that Richt gets some heat from fans about our pot laws. Who sets that and who has the authority to change it? Pot laws bother me more that Harrick.

If Coach Jim had been granted reign over his own style of discipline the Dawgs would already be a traditional Top 10 team. He was submarines by a malcontent loose cannon in T. Cole and the attendant lynch mob media hordes of eSPn.

Cole, who had a Presidential waiver for admission thanks to Adams. Adams, who approved recruiting of one athlete, knowing that man’s academic past, yet then threw the kid under the AJC bus and had a special committee reject the kid after a year to clean up his misdeed. Adams, who carved out a special exception for his wife to be put on payroll that allowed Todd Donnan, and once learned of was used to get the primary NCAA violator of that scandal, Jim Harrick Jr on payroll. Adams, who’s academic desires led to Harrick Jr someone teaching a class that included his own players in a massive conflict of interest that lacked proper oversight from the school’s side of things.

Louisville hiring Petrino and keeping the bb coach who had sex in a restaurant is not a reflection on every school that plays big time sports. It simply means that Louisville would rather win games. It is an institutional decision.

The complaints of ADs from schools who do nothing more than make sure their squads show up on time to take their licking are always entertaining.
Maybe someone from the Kellogg School of Management can sit down with Roby and explain basic economics.

I will give B1G schools credit for seeing a moral high ground PR opportunity when they see one. I am always impressed at their ability to do so with a straight face. While the SEC probably takes the Cynicism Award, the B1G wins the Hypocrisy Award, hands down.

Quote Of The Day

“It brings back a great Bulldog running back in Thomas who has NFL playing experience and has had success as a college coach at multiple schools. He also inherits a position that has been built to an elite level by Bryan. And it gives Bryan the opportunity to return to coaching the position he played and the one where he cut his teeth serving as a graduate assistant under wide receiver coach John Eason here at UGA. It also provides him with a new experience as a passing game coordinator.” -- Mark Richt, AB-H, 2/16/15